Resource Estimation / Оценка минеральных ресурсов

This beautifully presented course manual supporting Snowden Mining Industry Consultants renowned course in Resource Estimation represents the culmination of more than 20 years of course refinements, revisions, improvements and further refinements. No doubt the manual will continue to be improved in the future as new information becomes available and new techniques are introduced. After all a course manual must be a dynamic, living document that remains relevant to the mining industry.

I presented my first short course in Geostatistical Resource Estimation at the University of Western Australia in 1986. Snowden Associates was established in 1987 as a consultancy providing geological and geostatistical resource estimation services and our very first employee, Christine Standing, was one of the course delegates of 1986. Since the original manual was written to support what was later to become an internationally acclaimed course directly relevant to practicing mine and exploration geologists and mining engineers, several of Snowden’s staff, expert in applied resource estimation and geostatistics, have played important roles in the course revision and updating process. Lynn Olssen is responsible for this particular revision of the manual and has substantially raised the bar with respect to its organisation and the quality of presentation.

This is a course for those who want to be (or have to be) practitioners in applied resource estimation. It is built upon real case studies and offers practical tips to assist those who have to get the job done. There is a strong emphasis on hands-on assignments. The course and manual is designed to provide students, who have the appropriate background, with the tools that will allow them either to undertake serious resource estimation work or to be able to trouble-shoot or review resource estimates undertaken by others on projects that are inevitably subjected to intense scrutiny by investors.

Snowden’s resource consultants and geostatisticians have for more than 20 years been leaders in the application of resource estimation techniques in the global mining industry. In many respects the company has set the standard. This manual encapsulates a distillation of Snowden’s expertise.